As our friend The Reeler reported earlier today, Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures, who own the rights to the Japanese version of Pulse okayed the use of a shot from the original in Dimension's remake. "Is it scandalous? No," Bowles said. "Is it weird? Yes. You don't usually see the same shot used in a different film, but that was something [Dimension] had come to us about. And we said yes. There isn't anything scandalous about it at all." Though this left some doubt in my mind whether the new film was shot-for-shot mimicking Kiyoshi Kurosawa's, or if, as Magnolia-employed PR agency Special Ops breathlessly alleged yesterday, if new director Jim Sonzero had essentially disembowled the original film and used it for found-footage scraps.
Apparently, it was the latter. A seperate source at Magnolia told me this afternoon that the shot was actually lifted wholesale from the original – the actress was not "replaced", as some of us had suspected; the image was left alone. Why would the distributor do such a thing? There a few factors going on here. Miramax was originally slated to release Kurosawa's film in the U.S.; they left it on the shelf for years, and Magnolia picked it up from them in a divorce sale. They opened it super-small a couple of weeks ago (hence our review), but not much happened with it. A "controversy" such as this (whether Bowles wants to call it that or not) could very well be a semi-savvy last-ditch effort to ignite interest in the original before it goes to DVD. What say you?
Claudia Eller wrote a great piece in yesterday's LA Times on the nine-year struggle to bring Rent to the big screen. Most of the problems had something to do with Harvey Weinstein, who won a bidding war for the rights to Jonathan Larson's musical in 1996. Weinstein asked Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Films to produce, but then thwarted Tribeca's attempts to get a project off the ground. At one point, Spike Lee actually cast the film, but Weinstein refused to unlock the budget. Weinstein today insists that the script wasn't ready ("Whatever Spike said about our differences, it was about the script and the script only.") but Lee was so offended by the experience that he vowed never to work with Weinstein again. In fact, Lee said, "I would rather sell tube socks, three for $5." Chris Columbus eventually wrangled the project out of Harvey's grubby hands, and brought it over to Sony, where he produced the film with Revolution's Joe Roth.
I saw the film yesterday, and whilst I don't want to spoil my review, I will say that Harvey and Spike are probably better off uninvolved. I'll also suggest that you pay attention to those pull-quote heavy TV ads – if look carefully, you'll see that all those blurbs come from just 2 critics.
The day after Thanksgiving, the still-newish Weinstein Company will unveil its second release ... sort of. The Libertine, directed by Laurence Dunmore and starring Johnny Depp as the legendary poet/drunk the 2nd Earl of Rochester, will open upon a handful of screens in New York and LA, without a rating. And a week later, it'll be gone – at least, if all goes according to plan. Weinstein originally planned to release the film as part of its early-fall Miramax shelf dump – remember, the one that worked so well for Proof and all those other long-delayed Oscar hopefuls? – but they've now decided instead to release the picture for a one week awards qualifying run, and then regroup and reevaluate after nominations season.
I saw the picture this morning, and I think they're doing the right thing; Johnny Depp notwithstanding, this thing is going to be nearly impossible to market. The Weinstein Company are not yet affiliated with the MPAA; as such, when the ratings board offered them an NC-17 on the film, they politely declined. Depp is fabulous as the incorrigible Earl, and overall, the film is definitely worth seeing. But it's literally bursting with filth, to the point where it's almost like The Aristocrats remade as a narrative period piece. To say it won't play in Peoria is an understatement – the only way it'll play anywhere is if it's got a legitimate awards push behind it.
We posted way back in March about Scary Movie 4, and haven't heard anything since. Perhaps Bob Weinstein was waiting for the dust to settle on the big divorce before moving forward, but no matter – fans of shoddily-produced, over-the-top parody can now rejoice. Dimension has announced that the cast for the fourth installment of the Wayan's-bred franchise will include Simon Rex (of MTV/WB/porn/Scary Movie 3 fame), Leslie Nielsen (who, lucky for us, apparently can't bear to join the Zucker Brothers in semi-retirement) and Mrs. Dave Navarro herself, Carmen Electra. If you're a fan of the series (which - surprise! - I'm not), you might remember that Electra's character was killed off the last time around; the producers are saying she'll be resurrected in a scene spoofing The Village. Bringing bimbos back from the dead, eh? They've still got it!
Over at The Envelope, James Gates is predicting that Harvey Weinstein is going to largely stay out of this year's Oscar race. It's not that the films he and brother Bob have been involved with over the past twelve months aren't good enough to promote – although, in some cases, that's exactly it – it's that he's got one very good reason not to. "Having spent the last nine months (at least on paper) in the Disney
fold," Gates writes, "Pretty much any awards glory would feel like it was being shared
with a company he loathed being owned by." Gates predicts that Weinstein will launch a small handful of campaigns for actors and actresses that he'd like to cement working relationships with; Johnny Depp is the obvious example, and it does seem improbable that the Weinstein boys would let his performance in The Libertine slip by fellated.
I think Gates is exactly right - in fact, I think he maybe even underestimates the lengths to which Harvey's already gone to fill the four acting slots with his guys. Depp is surely a lock for Best Actor, and his co-star in The Libertine, Samantha Morton, has a chance in the Best Supporting Actress field as well. Transamerica should definitely reel in a Best Actress nod for Felicity Huffman, and even if Kevin Zeggers can't slide into the Supporting Actor category, Bob Hoskins, co-star of Mrs. Henderson Presents, can probably pick up the slack. Finally, that film's star is Judi Dench – a lady who, when it comes to Oscars, can never be completely counted out.
Derailedhinges on a familiar pitch, a theme that’s endured because it works, from here back to Hitchcock back to Shakespeare and all down the years to the beginning of human storytelling: You’re doing something that you know is wrong … and you stumble into something worse. Charles Schine (Clive Owen) has a big house, a loving-but-sick daughter and a relationship that feels more like a business partnership than a marriage with his wife Deanna (Melissa George). One day on the train, Charles meets Lucinda (Jennifer Aniston), who is funny and breezy and pretty ... and married. Charles knows he shouldn’t, but he seeks her out over the next few days, and their casual chats turn into lunches which turn into drinks and before you know it, Charles and Lucinda are in a cheap hotel room about to sleep together. Which is when the door bursts open and they’re interrupted by a ski-mask wearing tough. Threatened. Robbed. Charles is beaten; Lucinda is raped. Charles wants to call the authorities; Lucinda, fearful, is hesitant. “The police are going to want to know what we were doing here!” They go their separate ways. And Charles gets a call from their assailant, Mr. Laroche (Vincent Cassel), asking for money to go away, to not tell Charles’s wife about Lucinda. … And things get worse from there.
Based on a novel by James Siegel, Derailedmarks the North American debut of director Mikael Hafstrom, working from a script by Collateralscribe Stuart Beattie. Siegel’s book was a well-received page-turner; I read it when it came out, and I suppose that it tells you a certain something about the novel that I recall its premise and pitch far better than I recall its finale and execution. Yes, the theme of Derailedis one that’s endured because it when it’s done well it’s incredibly effective, but the ugly fact is that Derailedisn’t done well, with mis-casting, awkward direction and a slightly clumsy adaptation all disturbing the forward motion of Derailed’s plot. Derailedis never an actual train wreck, but there are much better story vehicles to take if you’re looking to disembark from the theater with goose bumps and a sense of satisfaction.
Madonna recently told the New York Daily Newsthat though she tried to find a distributor at last year's Cannes Film Festival for her recent documentary, I'm Going to Tell You a Secret, "unless you're Steven Spielberg, distributors
take all your DVD rights." In order to learn her lesson, Madonna apparently had to get burned. "When I sold Truth or Dare to Miramax," she says, "I got very little out of it. Just to use a
clip of it in my new movie, I had to pay them like $7,000." Mrs. Ritchie maintains that she was "thinking outside the box" when she eschewed a theatrical release to have the film shown exclusively on television. All this, despite the fact that she doesn't let her own kids watch TV? "Just because I'm a mother doesn't mean I'm not
still a rebel and that I don't want to go in the face of convention and
challenge the system," she says. "It's actually very punk-rock to not watch TV." So, to recap: Madonna's kids are punk rock, and anyone who subjected themselves to the two hours of Kabbalah-infused hell that his her new documentary is, apparently, not. And with that, I renounce my studded belt and Stranglers records to Rocco Ritchie, the future of the revolution.
I read Edward Jay Epstein's latest Slate piece, about Harvey Weinstein's creative accounting practices whilst at Miramax, when I was in Chicago covering the Festival. The night before, I sat through a screening of The Matador, the Pierce Brosnan/Greg Kinnear buddy comedy that Harvey picked up at Sundance and has plans to release through his new company this fall. On the surface, The Matador seems like an odd acquisition for Weinstein; an indie film in name only, no major studio would have trouble marketing its broad comedy and multiple-quadrant-skewing premise. On the surface, it lacks a certain essence that used to mark a typical pre-divorce Weinstein Sundance pick-up – where's the challenge?
Without touching directly on that acquisition, Epstein puts it in a kind of perspective. Harvey's business at Miramax was apparently based on delaying the release of films that he knew were going to be unprofitable so that those losses wouldn't affect his own bonuses. We've talked much about the Miramax late-summer shelf dump; Epstein says, films like The Brothers Grimm and An Unfinished Life, because they won't be balanced out by Oscar season hits, are such disasters that they're going to eat away five years worth of profits. That model, of releasing prestige and auteur projects at strategic points along the fiscal calendar so that the gems balance out the turkeys, is obviously risky as hell. Maybe The Matador is part of the new Weinstein Company's new strategy: a bad film dressed up as a good one, it seems like a key piece in the Weinstein's transition from a business based on imaginary profits, to one based on films that actually make money, regardless of prestige.
Miramax has acquired rights to The Queen, a Stephen Frears pic about the death of Princess Diana and the British royals. Variety says the move "reflects Miramax's aim of building an eclectic, wide-ranging slate of specialty projects"; all I know is, this sounds a lot better than what the Weinstein Brothers have on their slate. I think anyone unlucky enough to have already seen The Matador will agree.
Universal is so on Steve Carell's jock, it's not even funny. First, they're letting him write his own, unspecified script as a comic vehicle for himself; then, they bought a pitch called Juvenile, in which he'll star as "the most Caucasian man in America" who gets sent to juvenile prison and suddenly "is surrounded by 11-year-old
bad-asses". All this, plus the Bruce Almighty spinoff. Get ready for the backlash...
Sorry, slump spooksters – all evidence points to this being a pretty good fall for Hollywood. Even with underperformers like Serenity, each weekend has brought on a new crop of modest successes. But can Elizabethtown and/or The Fog continue the trend?
Andy Garcia will join Ben Affleck, Jeremy Piven (who, incidentally, is my back-up Celebrity Boyfriend, in the off chance that something were to happen to Clive), Ryan Reynolds and Alicia Keys in Smokin' Aces. Joe Carnahan will direct the mob-based action-comedy.
Harvey Weinstein announced today that he and his brother Bob have raised $230.5 million in equity in their new venture, The Weinstein Company. That's not too bad, considering TWC (as far as I know, no one else is jumping to that abbreviation except for lazy lil' me) has been open for business for about four days. HW also hinted that more investors are standing in line; the studio bankroll might total up to $420 million by next week. Bob and Harvey are mainly collecting money right now based on their track record at Miramax/Dimension, and on the strength of their upcoming slate. They'll release their first film as a non-Disney entity on November 11: Derailed, starring Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen. I was planning on challenging Martha to a series of escalating mental and physical challenges in order to win the right to review the film, but then I remembered that I had promised it to Ryan a long time ago. Probably a good thing, too – we should probably wait for a big dip in the numbers before launching into an inter-blog catfight.
Miramax has made the festival favorite Tsotsi its second aquisition under new president Daniel Battsek. The film tells the story of a South African Tsotsi (or gangster) who battles with his conscience after stealing a car that has a baby in the backseat. Miramax had been tailing this film ever since it picked up a couple of awards in Edinburgh, including an Audience Award. The battle for Tsotsi became greater after pic took home the People's Choice Award in Toronto with Miramax winning the much sought after North American rights. Some are comparing Tsotsi to the Oscar-nominated City of God, which was released by the old Miramax.
Speaking of old versus new, I'm wondering in which direction this version of Miramax will head; so far we have a sports doc and a foreign-language film. Are they playing it safe or taking risks? After Disney all but blamed their specialty division for causing a multi-million dollar loss in profits, where do they go from here? As far as Tsotsi is concerned, even though the film has been submitted by South Africa to represent their country in the foreign-language category at the Oscars, Miramax has not announced whether they will release the film this year to qualify for other awards or if they'll wait till 2006.
Despite the fact that Harvey and Bob aren't yet out the door, new Miramax head Daniel Battsek yesterday announced that he'd flexed his buying muscle for the first time. Battsek's first buy is The Heart of the Game, a documentary about "a tough inner-city girl's fight to play the game she loves and the eccentric tax professor who coaches her team" that is reportedly generating serious buzz at Toronto. First-time director Ward Serrill spent six years with the eccentric tax professor (Bill Resler) and his team, and this movie sounds freaking amazing. That said, as an ex-basketball player and coach myself, I admit that I may be sort of an easy mark for flicks like this one. Reviews are impossible to find (for me, anyway), but the few responses I've come across on the web are overwhelmingly positive - and Roger Ebert liked it! So maybe it's not just me, and this is the next March of the Penguins. Battsek certainly hopes so.
After a summer that's seen multiple disapointments (from Dark Water to Sky High to Herbie: Fully Loaded). Disney could find itself up to $300 million in the hole for this quarter. The Miramax shelf dump isn't helping – in fact, CFO Tom Staggs is willing to give Bob and Harvey Weinstein's offloaded garbage much of the blame. Whilst it's probably true that promotion costs alone on The Brothers Grimm made a bad situation much worse, Variety's Jill Goldsmith isn't above a touch of cattiness over Disney's complicity in the situation: "Staggs did not address the fact that it was
Disney that made the decision to hold all of the mini-major's titles
until now while negotiating with the Weinsteins."
Post-40 Year-Old Virgin Steve Carell = as hot, hot, hot as a post-New York Dolls David Johanson. He'll star inDan in Real Life for director Peter Hedges as soon as he finishes the Bruce Almighty sequel. He'll play an anal newspaper advice columnist who falls in love with his brother's girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Dreamworks, who announced a batch of Madagascar sequels yesterday, are recovering from a pretty crappy first year on the public market. Jeff Katzenberg insists that the whole Shrek 2 DVD debacle isn't as bad as we thought: "By creatively utilizing new releases to also market catalog titles, we think we can continue to drive sales," he said. Well, it's important to keep a positive attitude, even when the ship is going down...
Micah Green has left John Sloss behind at Cinetic Media to head to CAA. A sales lead on films such as Dig! and Napoleon Dynamite, Green will move to LA next week to join CAA's motion picture department.
Anthony Hopkins didn't bother to see Proof as a play before he starred in the film. "It was not necessary," he said. "I keep life simple."
Has Gwyneth Paltrow's moment passed? I don’t personally wish her any ill will – she seems like an inoffensive enough woman, macrobiotic mania aside – but her stardom to me seems like an irretrievably 90s phenomena, like Friends, or Lollapalooza, or, well, the Weinstein-powered monster that used to be Miramax, the studio whose closet the latest Paltrow film, Proof, has been collecting dust in for quite awhile. And if there’s anything tangibly wrong with the film (beyond the fact that it takes a bundle of potentially devastating ideas and dulls them down to the potency of a glass of warm strawberry milk), it's that the dust shows. The moment that its various elements work to describe feels like a blurry time capsule of recent history, seeming variously like the product of ten different Oscar seasons uncomfortably muddled together.
It's also a Serious Film About Geniuses, the kind that our anthropomorphized friend Oscar is rumored to love, and it works the cliches of that genre to the hilt. But there's something curiously hollow here: Proof's brainiacs furrow their brows to the correct degree whilst scribbling furiously in composition books, but that's about all they've got when it comes to conveying the mania that makes them want to make a living solving math problems. It's genius without passion, which essentially makes it lifestyle porn for nerd fetishists.
Fox Searchlight, seemingly resolved to ignore the plaintive cries of bidding war opponent Paramount Classics, has gone ahead and added Jason Reitman's Thank You For Smoking to its 2006 slate. Meanwhile, the Weinstein-less Miramax (who lost out to Fox on Bart Freundlich's Trust the Man), is said to be quietly pursuing several Toronto titles, including South African Oscar submission Tsotsi, and Sketches of Frank Gehry, a documentary by Sydney Pollack.
Constantine director Francis Lawrence will next take on I Am Legend. Based on the Richard Matheson novel, it's a massive sci-fi project that's been languishing in development for ten years; Will Smith and Ridley Scott are amongst the formerly attached talent.
Mike Medavoy's Phoenix Pictures will produceThe Brass Wall as a vehicle for Mark Ruffalo. He'll play an undercover cop who discovers mob ties in the force.
Finally, the news we've all been waiting for: Five of the Ernest movies are going back in to circulation on TV and DVD.
As our friend The Reeler reported earlier today, Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures, who own the rights to the Japanese version of Pulse okayed the use of a shot from the original in Dimension's remake. "Is it scandalous? No," Bowles said. "Is it weird? Yes. You don't usually see the same shot used in a different film, but that was something [Dimension] had come to us about. And we said yes. There isn't anything scandalous about it at all." Though this left some doubt in my mind whether the new film was shot-for-shot mimicking Kiyoshi Kurosawa's, or if, as Magnolia-employed PR agency Special Ops breathlessly alleged yesterday, if new director Jim Sonzero had essentially disembowled the original film and used it for found-footage scraps.
Claudia Eller
The day after Thanksgiving, the still-newish Weinstein Company will unveil its second release ... sort of. The Libertine, directed by Laurence Dunmore and starring Johnny Depp as the legendary poet/drunk the 2nd Earl of Rochester, will open up on a handful of screens in New York and LA, without a rating. And a week later, it'll be gone – at least, if all goes according to plan. Weinstein originally planned to release the film as part of its early-fall Miramax shelf dump – remember, the one that worked so well for Proof and all those other long-delayed Oscar hopefuls? – but they've now decided instead to release the picture for a one week awards qualifying run, and then regroup and reevaluate after nominations season. 
We posted 
Over at 
Madonna
I read 
Miramax has acquired rights to The Queen, 
Harvey Weinstein announced today that he and his brother Bob have raised $230.5 million in equity in their new venture, The Weinstein Company. That's not too bad, considering TWC (as far as I know, no one else is jumping to that abbreviation except for lazy lil' me) has been open for business for about four days. HW also hinted that more investors are standing in line; the studio bankroll might total up to $420 million by next week. Bob and Harvey are mainly collecting money right now based on their track record at Miramax/Dimension, and on the strength of their upcoming slate. They'll release their first film as a non-Disney entity on November 11: Derailed, starring Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen. I was planning on challenging Martha to a series of escalating mental and physical challenges in order to win the right to review the film, but then I remembered that I had promised it to Ryan a long time ago. Probably a good thing, too – we should probably wait for a big dip in the numbers before launching into an inter-blog catfight.
Miramax has made the festival favorite Tsotsi its second aquisition under new president 
Despite the fact that Harvey and Bob aren't yet out the door, new Miramax head Daniel Battsek yesterday announced that he'd flexed his buying muscle for the first time. Battsek's first buy is 
After a summer that's seen multiple disapointments (from Dark Water to Sky High to Herbie: Fully Loaded). Disney could find itself up to 
Fox Searchlight
